


Living Inside a Broken World

by Raikim4Never



Series: Outsiders [1]
Category: DreamWorks Dragons (Cartoon), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: (...is a tag i'm stealing bc it's hilarious for some reason), (but yeah no betas sorry about that), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III and Snotlout Jorgenson are Cousins, Hiccup runs away, Or Several, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Spitelout Jorgenson Being an Asshole, With a twist!, no beta we die like apache attack helicopters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-01-30 02:41:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21420847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raikim4Never/pseuds/Raikim4Never
Summary: Astrid doesn't wait to confront Hiccup until the Berk Armada has sailed away, and it sets events down a very different path.
Relationships: Astrid Hofferson & Stormfly, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III & Toothless, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III/Astrid Hofferson
Series: Outsiders [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1544245
Comments: 9
Kudos: 134





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Other Side](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16590509) by [Faye_Claudia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faye_Claudia/pseuds/Faye_Claudia). 

Astrid was jittery as she hid by the Great Hall where she’d seen an infuriated Stoick drag Hiccup into.

She’d had a horrible feeling when Hiccup had entered the Kill Arena that things were going to go wrong, but this… Toothless was captured (she had _promised to protect him_ if something went wrong!), the vikings who had been ‘handling’ him had taken him to who knows where, and now Hiccup was left desperately trying to convince his father to let the dragon go.

She had barely slipped away from the crowd of agitated vikings in time to spot Stoick dragging Hiccup behind him, which led her back to the present. She could barely hear Hiccup pleading for his father, her Chief, to listen to him but it didn’t sound like he was-

The door she was hiding by swung open and Astrid froze (_Frozen Astrid Hofferson_ her mind taunted) just out of sight. Which put her in the perfect position to hear Stoick’s words.

“I have no son.”

Stoick passed though the doors and froze himself as the door hiding Astrid behind him bounced almost closed behind him, and for a terrifying moment, Astrid thought he’d turn around and see her. Then he shook his head and kept walking. Steadying her breathing, she hurried into the Great Hall to see Hiccup curled into a ball, hands on his head and facing away from her. She thought he could even hear him crying, possibly.

He’d been disowned for trying to save his people, his father, albeit in a very un-vikinglike way. She didn’t blame him for being upset, but this wasn’t the time for tears. They needed to stop the others from killing Toothless.

“Hiccup,” she said and he froze.

“Astrid,” he said, after a second, sounding far away, then he repeated her name more urgently, forcing himself off the floor and nearly running to her. He had, in fact, been crying. “Astrid!” he sounded desperate. “I- I told dad everything! He’s- he’s going to- he’s-!”

“Calm down!” she ordered. He did not, but he did take several deep breathes which made him easier to understand. 

“He’s going to find the nest! He’s going to use Toothless to find the nest! He knows only dragons can find it, he’s, he’s going to get himself killed, get Toothless killed, get everyone killed!”

A chill went down Astrid’s spine. She’d thought she’d heard that while eavesdropping, but had hoped she’d been wrong. It looked like none of them were quite that lucky.  
“Hiccup, what are we going to do?” she asked and Hiccup looked at her like she’d grown a second head.

“You’re asking me?!” he asked incredulously. “Don’t ask me things!” His incredulous tone morphed into a snappish one. “I obviously can’t do anything right!” He threw up his arms. “This, this whole thing, it’s all my fault! I’m the one who thought he could just… train a dragon in front of the entire village! I’m the one who told Dad about the nest, and the fact that you need a dragon to get there! I’m the only stupid viking who would ever make friends with a dragon!”

“The only one who would train one, too.”

Hiccup paused and looked at her.

“What?”

Astrid sighed.

“Hiccup, you shot down a Night Fury, and instead of killing it like any other viking would have-”

“Thanks.”

She glared at him for the interruption. At least he had apparently calmed down enough to use sarcasm again.

“-and instead of killing it, you trained it. You learned about it, about all dragons, in ways that I can’t think of anyone else even thinking of doing. I can’t think of anyone else who would ever ride a dragon.”

She straightened out any curve in her spine and gave Hiccup a look that she hoped was as authoritative as something Stoick could do.

“So tell me, Hiccup Haddock. Your dragon has been taken from you, and he and your entire tribe are going to be put to death if you don’t do something. Tell me, here and now, what you’re going to do about that, Dragon Rider.”

There was a pause, and Astrid could practically see Hiccup’s thoughts moving rapidly behind his eyes. Finally, he took a breath and looked at her.

“I’m going to get my dragon back.”

….……………………………………

Stoick did not permit himself to feel anything other than grim determination as the men he’d entrusted the Night Fury to started to wheel the dragon towards the ships. The thing was restrained with stocks and chains, and despite visibly struggling, it could barely move.

Finally, after all these years, he could put an end to the war that had devastated his people for generations. To think, all it took to find the nest was a dragon. The irony was almost too much.

_‘They’re not what we think they are!’_ the voice of his foolish, traitorous son popped into his head uninvited and unwanted.

He _should have seen the signs._ The crazy idea had gotten Valka killed. It would only be a matter of time for Hiccup.

He was brought out of his frustrated musings by the startled, then panicked, shouts of his men. The blast of a Nadder forced several men to jump away from the dragon and Stoick saw the dragons from the area in the sky above the Night Fury. The Nadder landed, and a figure who was very much _not_ Hiccup jumped off it. Astrid Hofferson, armed with her own mother’s ax, began to free the cursed dragon.

Was every teenager on his island insane?!

Before he could stop her, the Gronkle shot a ball of lava between him and Astrid, destroying part of the dock and giving Stoick just enough of a pause for the Monstrous Nightmare that had nearly eaten his son to swoop in and grab the newly freed Night Fury. Astrid actually climbed onto the Nadder’s back, and the small flock vanished in seconds, taking Stoick’s only hope of finding the nest with it.

Stoick let out a furious yell, before storming back towards Berk. He had a sneaking suspicion who was behind this.

“WHERE IS HE?!” he yelled, starling the townspeople who had thought he was headed to the nest, finally. “WHERE. IS. HICCUP.”

….……………………………………………..

“You know, you didn’t have to come with me,” Hiccup said from on top of the Nightmare as the group landed on a sea stack. “There’s no going back, now. I could have freed Toothless myself, and you’d still be able to stay on Berk.”

“Maybe,” Astrid shrugged. “Kind of doubt it, though.”

Hiccup winced at that before jumping off the Nightmare. He looked back at him and gave him a quick, quiet word of thanks that the proud dragon seemed to ignore, then quickly went to Toothless’s side. Toothless gave him a hard lick to the side of the head, which made Hiccup yelp then groan in disgust. Astrid hid a smile behind her hand as Hiccup tried and failed to wipe the Night Fury spit off. After another couple minutes, Toothless had his saddle and prosthetic tailfin back in place.

“Alright, we got Toothless back,” Astrid said, “but what’s to stop your Dad from just catching a different dragon an going after the nest that way?”

“Uh. Us I guess?” Hiccup answered sheepishly. “I didn’t really… think that far ahead. Everyone on Berk is safe, for now.”

“Relatively.”

“Yeah. Relatively.”

The Nadder squawked, getting the riders attention as she stomped her feet. The riders looked at her and the other dragons, who were obviously getting antsy and casting vaguely nervous looks in what was probably the direction of the Nest.

“We should get out of here,” Hiccup decided. “The Queen was able to… I don’t know, mind-snare Toothless all the way in Berk, at least for a bit, we need to take the dragons and get as far away from her as possible. Maybe she has a range limit.”

“Well,” Astrid said, tone softer and sadder than she likely meant for it to be, “it’s not like we could go back to Berk anyway.”

Hiccup’s chest ached at his long-time crush’s voice, he wanted to make her feel better but he didn’t know what to do. How did you cheer up _Astrid Hofferson?_ Especially when you were hurting for the same reasons she was?

He couldn’t come up with an answer, so instead he turned to the freed arena dragons.

“You’re all free to go wherever you want,” he told them. “Just try to steer clear of Berk, if you can.”

The former arena dragons looked at each other, then turned back to him after several seconds. The Nightmare snorted, the Zippleback made some sort of hissing sound, and the Nadder squawked again in a vaguely offended manor, then flew back over to Astrid and nudged her. Astrid gave the Nadder a wide-eyed look and softly pet the dragon’s horn. Hiccup turned away quickly when he spotted what might have been tears in her eyes because that was _absolutely_ not his business, just in time for the Terror to scramble up his body and rest on his shoulder. The Gronkle waddled over to him and made a chuffing noise, sounding almost reprimanding.

“Or I guess- or you could stick with us, if that’s what you want.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally posting this story! ...and this chapter honestly isn't even close to done. >:/
> 
> Which brings me to an unfortunate announcement I have to make. I'm going to have to drop my weekly update schedule. It's just... too often for me. I've got too many things I'm trying to write, and it's pulling me in too many different directions to keep up with this schedule. So... instead of updating every Wednesday, I'll be updating every Wednesday that I _actually have something to update with_, which was very nearly not the case here. (it still sort of isn't, since this chapter isn't finished. maybe think of it like a preview?) I feel terrible about this decision (also the fact that i'm making this announcement on the first chapter of a new fic, instead of an old one but i don't _have_ anything for anything else!), but it's the only thing I can do. I need to change how I'm writing (maybe start by making an actual frickin outline for my stories, for one thing) and it's going to take time that I don't have at my current pace. So... see you guys, eventually!


	2. Chapter 2

“Of all the yakheaded, idiotic, TRAITOROUS-”

Gobber winced as Stoick paced through the Great Hall. Word had spread like wildfire through the tribe in the hours after Hiccup and Astrid had taken the dragons, and to say the people were unhappy would be an understatement. This was, after all, literally treason. Over the course of an hour, the former village screw-up turned hero had stabbed the entire tribe in the back, running and taking the only way they had to find the nest, both the Night Fury and the dragons at the arena, with him, along with the best up-and-coming warrior the tribe had seen for a while.

The Hoffersons were inconsolable. Whether that was because their daughter was gone, or because of the shame of what she’d done, few people were sure.

Out of the corner of his eye, Gobber saw the remaining teenagers of Berk spying on the counsel, although it looked like morbid curiosity was the only thing keeping them from running in the opposite direction. They were stacked on top of each other, with an unfortunate Fishlegs at the bottom.

“-he _do_ something like this?!” Stoick demanded. “Better question, why would _Astrid?!_ Hiccup has always been…”

“A hiccup?” Spitelout, sitting several seats down from Gobber, offered. “A failure of a viking?” Gobber and Stoick both glared at him slightly, but he just leaned back into his chair unconcerned and glared right back. “You know I’m right, Stoick.”

Stoick let out an angry sigh.

“Yes. _That._ But Astrid! What was that girl thinking?”

“Maybe she got scared of something,” Spitelout offered with a nasty smirk. “Another scared Hofferson. I’m thinking Fearful this time, instead of Frozen.”

“If that were the case, she wouldn’t have gone _with_ the dragons, now would she?” Stoick pointed out flatly.

“Besides,” Gobber cut in, “I wouldn’t exactly describe that girl as ‘fearful’. Fierce, maybe, not fearful. Honorable, too, more or less. Ain’t like her to do this.”

“Why did she, then, since you seem to know her so well?” Spitelout demanded. Gobber shrugged. He honestly couldn’t figure out what the two kids had been thinking. He was pretty sure those two weren’t trying to do anything to bring harm to Berk, but the circumstances being what they were, it still looked… bad.

“Dunno. But I do know that both those two care about Berk’s well-being, which is why I can’t figure this whole thing out.”

“Care about our wellbeing?” Spitelout asked in indignation. “By declaring they weren’t vikings and ensuring that we can’t take out the nest? How’s that-”

“That’s _enough_ Spitelout,” Stoick snapped. “We get it.” Stoick finally stopped pacing and turned to the counsel, his eyes briefly flicking over the table to glare at the teenagers that were none-too-subtly trying to listen by the door. They cringed back- or at least Fishlegs did, nearly sending the entire pile toppling over. “We’ll need to… do something, about the traitors.”

“They’ve basically outcast themselves, Stoick,” Spitelout said. “Why not just make it official? It’s what we do for _all_ traitors.”

“They’re _children,_” Stoick snapped.

“So?” Spitelout asked, before his tone became snappish as well. “This ain’t your boy setting the armory on fire for the fiftieth time with one of his ridiculous inventions, Stoick, this is actual, knowing treason.”

“Even if we tried to banish them,” Gobber pointed out, trying to be reasonable, “they aren’t even here to _be_ banished. Are you proposing we go looking for them, along with the nest? Just to send them on their way again?”

Spitelout scowled at him.

“Gobber’s right,” Stoick said. “Bringing them back is pointless. We’ll inform the other tribes of their treachery, but we won’t waste resources to go looking for them. But they’re not welcome back, ever.”

Gobber eyed his old friend but said nothing. Stoick’s tone was neutral, but the blacksmith just couldn’t believe that he was actually fine with all this. That was his own son he was basically banishing!

Stoick turned his back to his friend and the rest of the council. As far as the chief was concerned, the discussion about the rouge teenagers was over, he wanted to hear no more about them. There was, however, still one important matter to discuss.

“Hiccup told me,” he said, “that ‘only a dragon’ can find the nest. If that wasn’t a lie, then we need to prioritize capturing dragons in raids.”

“Uh, and you believe him, Chief?” Mulch finally chimed in. “I mean, maybe he was just saying that to… I dunno, keep us from killing dragons?”

“He didn’t inform me, Mulch,” Stoick sighed. “He let it slip. Accidentally. That’s likely why he took the damned dragons from the arena with him as well, to take _any_ chance we had of ending this with him.” He turned around. “Even if it _is_ a lie, we need to restock the arena to resume dragon training _anyway._”

There was no arguing with that point.

“We don’t have to capture every dragon that comes to kill us, just one or two should work, we can still kill the rest.”

….……………………………

“I can’t believe they did that,” Fishlegs said after the teens left.

“I know, right?” Ruffnut nodded, although she was smiling.

“No kidding,” Snotlout growled slightly and kicked the ground. “They just- just abandoned us!”

“What? I thought we were talking about how they trained dragons,” Tuffnut interjected, going slightly starry eyed. “So cool.” He turned to his sister. “Just imagine what we could do with a dragon helping us!” The two headbutted each other.

“I was talking about the counsel!” Fishlegs huffed. “I can’t believe they just… banished those two like that.”

“They committed treason, what did you think was gonna happen, Fishface?” Snotlout sneered. Fishlegs shrunk back.

“I don’t know…” Fishlegs continued, voice quieter, “they had to have a good reason, right? I mean, Astrid wouldn’t… she’d never…”

"Yeah, well, take it up with the counsel if you think they’re being _unfair,_” Snoutlout snapped. Stoick’s furious face flashed through Fishleg’s mind and the larger boy decided that no, he would not do that.

….………………………………..

Miles south of Berk, Hiccup, Astrid, and the dragons hovered in the air, staring warily at a fog bank. This was not an ordinary fogbank, but a well-known feature of the border of the Barbaric Archipelago.

“The Storm Ring,” Astrid breathed. The ring extended around the entire Archipelago for reasons unknown, and was almost always full of storms or, if someone who wanted to cross it was lucky, just fog. There were even rumors that some days even the fog disappeared, but few believed it, and it was said that the gods had created the ring to do battle in when disagreements became too heated. Which was often.

Right now, it seemed as though the ring was just fog, but the two humans knew that could change easily and unexpectedly. The dragons, meanwhile, exchanged glances, wondering what the hold up was.

While there were a couple of tribes that made a habit of frequently crossing the Storm Ring, Berk was not one of them. Which meant it was, theoretically, an excellent escape route, save for the fact that the teens didn’t know how to navigate it safely either. Astrid looked up.

“Think we can go _over_ it?” she asked, already fairly certain of the answer. There was no sign of the fogbank ending anywhere in the sky.

“No,” Hiccup answered, confirming Astrid’s thoughts, “we’re just gonna have to go th- fly through it.”

Astrid sighed, and looked at the intimidating bank of fog once more. It was too thick to see through, they’d have to rely entirely on the dragons’ senses of direction to navigate, and Astrid wasn’t sure we was quite at that level of trust with the Nadder yet.

“Alright, let’s just… go I gu-” Astrid was cut off by the Nadder suddenly making distressed squawking noises. She grabbed the dragon’s headspikes, even as the Nadder started shaking her head, her wings obsessionally going out of sync and sending the pair tumbling in short, uncontrolled bursts. A quick, alarmed glance showed that Toothless was jerking around in mid-air, and even making noises that sounded desperate and terrified. From her point of view on the Nadder, she saw the Monstrous Nightmare, Hideous Zippleback, Gronkle, and, presumably, Terrible Terror’s eyes all turn into slits and they shuddered and turned in mid-air, heading back in the general direction of Berk. And the Nest.

“It must be the Queen!” Hiccup, holding onto Toothless for dear life, shouted at her. “She got the others, and she’s trying to get Toothless and the Nadder too!”

Toothless let out a noise that could possibly be called a yelp and shook his head, pupils slit and teeth barred in obvious distress. Beneath Astrid, the Nadder seemed to shudder violently.

“Come on, Bud!” Hiccup cried, sounding desperate and rubbing Toothless’s head for some reason. “Fight her!”

Astrid wished she knew what to say to the Nadder, but nothing came to mind other than a hollow-feeling echo of Hiccup’s own words to Toothless- ‘fight her!’ ‘keep fighting!’ ‘you can do it!’.

Astrid felt helpless to save the Nadder. She _hated_ feeling helpless. At least Hiccup knew Toothless enough to have some idea of what he was doing! …Probably.

Toothless finally seemed to snap back to himself, although his pupils were still that unnervingly thin shape, and the Night Fury’s whipped around towards the retreating dragons. He let out a roar, seemingly trying to call them back.

“I know, Bud!” Hiccup said with a sense of urgency in his voice, before he turned to Astrid. “We’re going to try and get the others back!” Before Astrid could protest that, the two of them shot off after the other dragons, leaving Astrid and the Nadder alone, trying to fight off the mind snare of the Queen and not fall out of the sky at the same time.

The Nadder seemed to be doing better than Toothless had the first time he’d been re-snared. She was fighter, like Astrid (or maybe it was just because she’d been out of the Queen’s grip for significantly longer. Or maybe another dragon fighting it nearby had helped. Astrid didn’t know. She shoved any doubts aside and choose to believe that the Nadder was just that good), she could fight this off!

Astrid pressed her whole body closer to the Nadder, not sure what else to do as she kept encouraging her to fight off the Queen.

“Come on, girl, come on…!” She rubbed the Nadder’s scales, hoping that maybe it would help somehow. It didn’t seem to, and the two finally fell out of the sky, landing in cold ocean water. The force from how hard they hit the water and the sensation of cold, cold, COLD shocked a gasp out of Astrid, which was unfortunate seeing as how she was Thor knew how deep underwater. She coughed, as well as one could underwater, which did not help, and jerked around. She couldn’t see the Nadder. She didn’t know which way was up, it was so _dark_. She had to get to the surface! She had to _breathe!_

She remembered her mother had told her once- if you’re underwater and can’t figure out which way was up, just follow the bubbles. Follow the bubbles! Astrid’s eyes stung from the saltwater as she whipped her head around, trying to follow the path of any bubbles she made, but they all seemed to pop before she could track them. Frustrated and desperate, she began swimming in a random direction and could only hope that she was swimming the right way before a large mass slammed into her and forced her in another direction. She struggled for a few more seconds, then her head breached the surface of the water. She coughed, tried to inhale as much air as she could, then coughed again. Thor, her throat _stung_.

The large mass _was_ the Nadder like Astrid thought, and she seemed to have broken free from the Queen’s snare. Astrid, still trying to clear her lungs of water, grabbed the front of the Nadder’s face and placed her forehead against it.

“Thank you,” she said, as soon as she could at long last breathe properly again. The-her Nadder leaned into her touch, and Astrid felt that same… spark or something she’d felt after they’d escaped from Berk.

Astrid looked towards the direction Hiccup and Toothless had flown off in and winced. A storm was starting to brew, meaning they were probably on a time limit now. Taking a deep breath she climbed onto the back of the Nadder, and the two took off after their friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. I didn't know there was any kind of official map when I came up with this AU, so I made up my own geography. The Storm Ring is a part of that.
> 
> The amount of times I typed 'the Nadder' killed me. Just **name her** already Astrid! >.<


	3. Chapter 3

Hiccup winced as the Terrible Terror dug his claws into the Rider’s arm, the way the small dragon’s body rapidly twisted in all directions reminding him of the time a cloak of his was ripped off in a blizzard.

“Stop… fighting… me…” he hissed, trying to keep the flailing claws away from his face without letting go of the tiny dragon. “I’m trying… to… help you…”

Hiccup turned when he heard his name called, and saw Astrid and her Nadder fly up to them.

“Astrid! Thank Thor!” Hiccup’s voice was thick with relief, which quickly turned into confusion. “Why are you wet?”

Astrid gave him an unimpressed look for the question.

“I fell in the water,” she said, voice flatter than Midgard itself.

“...that’d do it, yeah.” Hiccup at least had the decency to look sheepish for the question. “And hey, the Nadder broke out of the Queen’s control! That’s- that’s something, right?”

“Yeah, she saved me when we hit the water,” Astrid admitted. Hiccup looked thoughtful at that, which gave the Terrible Terror the opening it needed. Hiccup’s concentration was broken when the Terror got a good scratch on his face, thankfully missing his eyes, breaking the hold the Rider had on it and letting it continue to try and fly away. Hiccup hissed in pain and brought his hands up to his face for a second, before immediately being forced to adjust Toothless’s tailfin, lest the angry Night Fury have a very small, scaly snack in retaliation for Hiccup’s new facial injury.

“You okay?” Astrid called to him in concern.

“Yes! Fine!” he called back. “I just had an idea!” Astrid was quiet, prompting Hiccup to continue. “The water!” Hiccup gestured widely with both arms. “What if the- what if it was the shock of hitting the cold water that snapped the Nadder out of the Queen’s control?”

“Well, I don’t have any better ideas,” Astrid said with a nod, “and if nothing else, it’ll soak their heads so they can’t fire any shots at us.” As soon as she’d agreed, Astrid and the Nadder took off after the Terrible Terror. Astrid leaned in carefully, before the Nadder spun around the small dragon, allowing Astrid to grab it then toss it as hard as she could into the water. After a minute or two, the Terror popped it’s head back out of the water, looking slightly dazed, but it made no effort to continue heading back towards the nest. Hiccup cheered.

“It worked! Now we just…” His enthusiasm died. “…have to do that to a Gronkle, Zippleback, and Monstrous Nightmare. Somehow. Yay.”

“Well, let’s get to it, then!”

….………………………………………………………………………………………

“Gronkle, dead ahead!” Astrid called to Hiccup.

“I see it!” he called back, before leaning forward to talk to Toothless. “Alright bud, how do you want to do this?”

Toothless rumbled, and shot up higher into the sky to glide over the Gronkle. The dragon and rider looked at each other.

“Oh, okay, what are we doiiiiiiIIING-!” Hiccup started yelling when Toothless folded both his wings in to divebomb the Gronkle, slamming into it and sending all three of them into the water. “Well,” Hiccup said as he shook his head to dry his hair somewhat. The Gronkle, at least, was no longer under the Queen’s control. “That worked.” He was pretty sure he could actually hear Astrid smirking at him. “Not a word.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Astrid said, and she was, in fact, smiling as her Nadder dove down enough for her to check on the Gronkle. “Hey there,” she said, her voice taking on a soft tone as she pat the boulder-class dragon. “Back with us?” The Gronkle grunted and flew out of the water, shaking it’s head and looking at them curiously, seemingly unaware of what had just happened.

“Alright, that’s three down!” Hiccup waved to Astrid, giving her a smile that was only slightly forced. “You want the Zippleback or the Nightmare?”

“I’ll take the Zippleback. You can have another shot at the Nightmare.”

Hiccup groaned out a ‘great’ before urging Toothless towards the largest and fiercest of the dragons. Astrid, meanwhile, set her sights on a green, double-headed draconic figure flying in not-quite the same direction. She urged the Nadder quickly forward, before dropping in speed once they’d caught up to keep even pace with it. Them. Whichever.

“Alright,” Astrid mumbled to herself and the Nadder, eyeing up the enthralled Zippleback, “this would probably be easier if you could still shoot fire…”

Before Astrid could continue to try and plan something, the Nadder, despite being soaking wet, shot a burst of her white fire towards the Zippleback, or in front of it. She had about of second to try and process her shock because dragons weren’t supposed to be able to fire while their heads were wet, that didn’t make _sense_, before the brilliant fire hit the water and the resulting explosion of sun-like light and heat forcefully shoved her confusion to the back of her mind. She somehow managed to avoid shrieking in shock, the Zippleback did that for her anyway, and her Nadder stopped slightly, letting the Zippleback be knocked into the water without being knocked into the water herself.

Astrid shook her head slightly, trying to blink the spots out of her vision. What the heck _was_ that?! Gobber hadn’t mentioned a Nadder’s fire being explosive when it hit water, and she was pretty sure the Book of Dragons hadn’t mentioned it!

Nevermind. Not important right now. The important thing right now was getting the dragons away from the queen, and she had to check and see if the Zippleback was back in it’s right mind/s. She urged her Nadder over to where the Zippleback had fallen in the water, and was alarmed to see no sign of it. She inhaled sharply and scanned the water until, finally, one dazed-looking head popped out of the water, then a second one. Safe. For now.

Almost a mile in a different direction, Hiccup briefly turned his head when he heard a loud sizzling sound and winced at the bright light, rubbing his eyes. Whatever that was, it could wait until he and Toothless had the Nightmare under control. He exhaled at looked back at the Nightmare, which Toothless was flying parallel to. This would be tricky… if the water’s cold was what snapped them out of this, then they couldn’t let it flame up. Actually, could it even flame up under the Queen’s control? Hiccup didn’t exactly want to test the idea that he couldn’t, as helpful as the idea was. He shook his head and looked over the huge dragon again.

Nightmares were the biggest of the dragons that routinely raided Berk, and the chances that they could just bodyslam him into the water like with the Gronkle were… not good. He was too focused on the siren song of the Queen to pay enough attention to the duo to be tricked, at least without making it flame up. Hiccup bit his lip, eyeing the dragon as the bare bones of a plan started to form in his mind. It wasn’t one he particularly liked, for several reasons.

“Okay, bud, let’s get underneath him…”

Toothless made an inquiring noise, but Hiccup didn’t elaborate, in part because he was still trying to figure out his own plan. The duo flew close under the Nightmare, and Hiccup eyed the larger dragon’s head and neck, looking to see if he could see the mark from Toothless attacking him in the arena. If he could find that, he might have something for Toothless to aim at… if they were lucky, they might be able to knock the Nightmare out for a second or two… Hiccup really wished he had the time to come up with a less violent plan for his-arguably-a-friend, but…

“If you can lower the power of your shots bud, aim there!” Hiccup urged Toothless quietly, pointing at the red mark on the Nightmare’s neck once he’d spotted it. Toothless obliged and shot the mark, and the Nightmare flailed, not knocked out like Hiccup had hoped, but stunned enough that it didn’t completely flame up either, and instead plummeted towards the water, flames dancing over his wings, igniting and going out. Hiccup winced at the wave of steam that burst from the water, unable to do anything but hope that that wasn’t a sign of failure. After a few tense seconds, the Nightmare burst through the surface of the water, looking angry but no longer entranced. He glared at Hiccup and Toothless, literally steaming.

“Uh. Hi.”

….………..

The Zippleback was out of the water and the Gronkle had caught up to the rest of them when Astrid spotted a dot approaching them at a rapid pace. For what felt like the millionth time today, Astrid squinted to try and get a better look at whatever it was.

“Is that…?”

The dot became a black blur that sped past them, and it wasn’t exactly difficult to figure out the blur’s identity.

“Gogogo…!” was all the scrap of whatever it was that Hiccup was saying as he and Toothless passed her. She didn’t have much time to wonder what that meant, as an angry roar cut through the air, drawing attention to a very upset looking Nightmare. The Nadder let out a startled squawk and took off after Toothless, with the Gronkle and Zippleback following close behind.

“HICCUP WHAT DID YOU DO!”

“HE WAS FLYING TOO HIGH FOR TOOTHLESS TO JUST TACKLE, OKAY?!”

….………………………………………………………………………………………

It didn’t take much time to return to the Storm Ring, given the incentive of an angry Nightmare. Thankfully the flight back, short as it was, was long enough for the Nightmare to cool down for the most part.

The teens found themselves once again staring nervously at the Storm Ring, but now the dragons were also nervous as well. Within the previously calm, if impossible to see through fog bank, the deceptively far-off sounding crack of thunder resounded, partnered to worryingly close flashes of light. Still, time was now more than ever of the essence, and they had to get as far away from the Queen as they could. Which meant crossing the Storm Ring, and crossing it _now_, before she enspelled the dragons again. Hiccup and Astrid shared looks that perfectly conveyed how very much they were both not looking forward to this, before urging their partners, and the other dragons by extension, forward.

Naturally, things got very tricky very quickly.

The Terrible Terror had stopped bothering to try and fly in the winds of the storm, and was currently in Toothless’s saddle, much to the Night Fury’s annoyance, squashed as close to Hiccup as he could manage as the human tried to make due with his new inability to see a foot past Toothless’s head as the freezing cold rain that seemed to be pouring almost sideways was seemingly doing it’s best to permanently blind the former viking. To the side he could see the Zippleback and… no one else.

Thor dammnit.

“ASTRID!” Hiccup called, painfully aware that his voice was likely being lost to the wind. Still. “ASTRID WHERE ARE YOU?!”

Any response she may have made was lost to the howling of the wind and the clashing of the gods. Hiccup shuddered, gripping Toothless’s saddle as hard as he could. They had to find her. They had to find her!

Toothless let out a yell of his own, his roar echoing Hiccup’s voice far louder than the human could have managed in the storm (or at all).

Astrid, meanwhile, was searching for Hiccup, having lost him when the Nadder had suddenly had to dive out of the way of… something that had been tossed at her by the winds of the storm. Maybe a particularly unfortunate bird or Terrible Terror, she wasn’t sure. She couldn’t see Hiccup, or any of the dragons, through the thick fog and rain, although she thought she might have seen fire flaring up occasionally before going out, which she figured was probably the Nightmare. Hopefully, they were all together, and all Astrid and her Nadder had to do was find them.

The Nadder was surprisingly steady, even in the horrible wind. Not that it was a perfectly stable, even glide, of course, but she seemed to be having less trouble than the other dragons had had. They scanned the storm as best they could, but neither dragon nor rider could find- there! Astrid spotted another flash of fire, and steered her Nadder towards it.

When Astrid and the Nadder caught up to the flash, she found that it was indeed the Nightmare, with the Gronkle in his claws, both of them looking badly battered by the storm, the Nightmare struggling to stay in the air with the added weight of the Boulder class dragon, and looking unnervingly like he was going to collapse. There was a rumble of thunder, then the screech of a Night Fury, and suddenly Hiccup and Toothless, followed by the Zippleback, had caught back up.

“Hiccup!” Astrid sent a quick prayer of thanks to the gods. “There you are!”

“Astrid, thank Thor!” He waved, and Astrid noticed the Terrible Terror on Toothless’s saddle. “I think Toothless found the way out!”

“What, really?!” Astrid gaped, optimistically hopeful. She wouldn’t let herself feel relieved until they were out of this horrible storm, though.

“Yeah!” Hiccup called back over the wind. “I think he can find his way with sound- it’s how we found you guys!”

Astrid bit back a response somewhere along the lines of ‘and he was able to use that _here_?’ and instead gestured for Hiccup to continue. He looked sheepish for a second, before commanding everyone to follow him, in a surprisingly self-assured tone, sounding like…

Like a chief.

It was ironic, that in throwing away his duty to become the next chief of Berk he finally seemed to be gaining the confidence needed to do that very job. Maybe a little tragic, too.

The storm finally seemed to break into clear skies as the group finally made it out of the storm ring, the contrast between the thick fog, blinding rain, and cracks of lightning and thunder just a few feet away from the calm seas and skies was enough to nearly make Astrid’s head spin. Still, a quick sweep of nearby islands that were completely unknown to the two of them were a good sign- it meant that they’d gotten through it after all.

“Hiccup, I don’t think anyone’s in great condition.” And indeed they weren’t. The Nightmare had let go of the Gronkle, but it still somehow looked exhausted, and the Gronkle seemed to be having trouble staying in one spot in the air. The Zippleback had actually fallen back into the water, and seemed content to just float for a bit. Toothless looked somewhat battered and unhappy, but not too bad, and the Terrible Terror still wasn’t trying to fly, which might have been why Toothless still looked annoyed. About the only dragon who seemed more-or-less okay was the Nadder. Astrid reached down to rub the dragon’s scales appreciatively. The storm hadn’t messed her up at all and Astrid couldn’t help but feel proud of her, and she whispered as much to the dragon.

“You’re right,” Hiccup called. “Let’s take a rest on one of those islands and… figure out what to do next, I guess.”


End file.
